Most articles and weblog posts on using HTML 5 recommended Remy Sharp’s handy script to make Internet Explorer recognise HTML 5’s new tags. But few offer a solution to the problem of folk browsing an HTML5 site in IE with JavaScript turned off.

Rather than treat JS-averse IE visitors to a hideous mess of a site, I’ve decided to treat them to a hideous mess of a site plus a polite suggestion to switch JavaScript on:

<!--[if IE]>
<noscript>
<div>
<p>Are you using Internet Explorer with JavaScript turned off?</p>
<p>This site probably looks a bit of a mess.</p>
<p>If you can, turn JavaScript on, and reload the page - that
should fix the problem.</p>
<p>If you can't do that, my apologies. For fun,
I made the site using new code that Explorer doesn't
understand just yet.</p>
<p>Comments? Complaints? Email me at j@ck.mottr.am</p>
</div>
</noscript>
<![endif]-->

Since I’m already serving all versions of IE a special stylesheet, I’ve added a bit of CSS to make <noscript> look all warningy:

noscript div {
	margin:60px;
	padding:10px;
	color:#ff0000;
	background:#ffffe0;
	border:1px solid #ff0000;
}

I wonder if it’s worth adding instructions on how to switch JavaScript on?

Update: The apparently extraneous div inside the noscript is included to fix a bug in IE8.